296 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY 



together. This was on the southern pampas, at a place called Gualicho, 

 where I had ridden for an hour before sunset over a marshy plain where 

 there was still much standing water in the rushy pools, though it was 

 at the height of the dry season. This whole plain was covered with an 

 endless flock of chakars, not in close order, but scattered about in pairs 

 and small groups.. In this desolate spot I found a small rancho in- 

 habited by a guacho and his family, and I spent the night with them. 

 The birds were all about the house, apparently as tame as the domestic 

 fowls, and when I went out to look for a spot for my horse to feed on, 

 they could not fly away from me, but merely moved a few steps out of 

 my path. About nine o'clock we were eating supper in the rancho, 

 when suddenly the entire multitude of birds covering the marsh for 

 miles around burst forth into a tremendous evening song. It is impos- 

 sible to describe the effect of this mighty rush of sound; but let the 

 reader try to imagine half a million tones bursting forth on the silent 

 atmosphere of the dark, lonely plain. One pecularity was that in this 

 mighty noise, which sounded louder than the sea thundering on a rocky 

 coast, I seemed to be able to distinguish hundreds, even thousands, of 

 individual voices. Forgetting my supper, I set motionless and over- 

 come with astonishment, while the air, and even the frail rancho, seemed 

 to be trembling in that tempest of sound. When it ceased, my host 

 remarked with a smile, "We are accustomed to this, senor — every even- 

 ing we have this concert,' It was a concert well worth riding a hundred 

 miles to hear." 



No less remarkable is the fact that the Chakar soars upward into the 

 air and sings, as if he were a relative of the little Skylark of Europe. 

 Ponderous a bird as he is, and having a spread of wing of only six feet 

 and a half, he possesses a power of soaring equal to that of the Vulture 

 and the Eagle, scaling so high that his bulky body appears like a speck 

 moving across the sky, and sometimes disappears entirely; and when 

 he sings at the height, his "notes become wonderfully etherealized by 

 the distance to a soft, silvery sound," to which it is a rare delight to 

 listen. 



"I was once very much surprised at the behavior of a couple of Cha- 

 kars during a thunder-storm," says Dr. Hudson. "On a still, sultry 

 day in summer I was standing watching masses of black cloud coming 

 rapidly over the sky, while a hundred yards from me stood the two 

 birds apparently watching the approaching storm with interest. Pres- 

 ently the edge of the cloud touched the sun, and a twilight of gloom 

 fell on the earth. The very moment the sun disappeared, the birds 

 rose and soon began singing their long-resounding notes, though it was 

 thundering loudly at the time, while vivid flashes of lightning lit the 



